


Safe

by Lina_Natsudori



Category: Anastasia (1997)
Genre: F/M, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-24
Updated: 2013-02-24
Packaged: 2017-12-03 10:37:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/697352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lina_Natsudori/pseuds/Lina_Natsudori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anya had never considered that there could be a bright side to being a memory-less orphan before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safe

Anya had never considered that there could be a bright side to being a memory-less orphan before.

She’d had no reason to think that there _was_ one. Life as Comrade Phlegmenkoff’s charge was cold and gray. The blankets were thin and the other orphans kicked in their sleep. She had been _anything_ but grateful for the roof over her head.

Ten years since her arrival at the orphanage and she’s found the bright side.

She bolts awake, gasping for air, sheets twisted in her fists. Her throat is dry, her skin wet with sweat.

Before she’d had memories, her dreams had been happy places. Places where she reunited with an indistinct family, cooked around a hot stove of laughing friends, found herself enveloped in a warm embrace the moment she stepped over a threshold. Her dreams had looked forward to the future.

They looked to the past now. And her past, she’d discovered, held things she’d have been better off never remembering.

She eases her way from the bed, mindful not to step on Pooka who sleeps on the floor with an ear flopped over one eye. Dimitri faces the wall and lets out a soft snort in his sleep.

It helps her to look out the window, to look out at a street that is lit by gaslamps and free of snow. She’s still trying to bring herself back—to the _here,_ to the _now._

But in her mind she is being herded by angry shouts down dark corridors where her own breathing is too loud, _too loud,_ and then she’s out and Grandmama is half dragging her across the snowscape that stretches too vast before them. And the cold rips through her throat, she’s tripping, sliding across ice into a madman’s grasp, she can’t think where Papa, Mama, or her siblings are, she’s racing across a platform, Grandmama’s fingers slip through hers and--

She closes her eyes and presses her fingertips to her head in an attempt to _push_ the memories away.

A warm hand falls on her shoulder. “Anya?” 

Dimitri is looking down at her, brow furrowed, eyes still muddled with sleep. He yawns, wide. “You should be sleeping. We’re on the 6:15 train for Paris.”

She reaches for a smile, fails, and grabs his hand instead. “I know. I just… couldn’t sleep.” She pinches him playfully. “Someone was snoring again.”

“I keep telling Pooka to knock that off.”

Pooka, awake now, woofs reproachfully.

Dimitri’s not fooled. “Nightmares again?”

“No. Yes. I—“ She puffs out a disgruntled breath of air. “I’m fine.”

He pulls her in and her arms go around his waist. This is the part he’s good at. The quips come naturally to both of them, but they fall short when talking about their feelings. Dimitri may fumble his words, but his hands are sure as they rub her back, smooth down her hair and she feels her erratic heartbeat slowing to match his calm one. She lets him lead her back to bed. Lets him tuck himself in beside her, a grounding presence. His arm drifts across her waist to pull her snug against him.

“It’s all right,” he says, breath warm on her ear, as her eyes drift closed again. “You’re safe now.”

**Author's Note:**

> I watched Anastasia twice this week and this just sort of happened. And more may still happen. It sparked many IDEAS and FEELS so I guess we'll see.


End file.
